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What the Self-Esteem Movement Got Disastrously Wrong

  And how it emotionally crippled today's young adults.

Monday, May 15, 2017

  [15]Dan Sanchez

[16]Dan Sanchez

  [17]Culture [18]Education [19]Psychology [20]Self-Esteem
  [21]Self-Improvement
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  One of Saturday Night Live’s most popular skits in the early 90s was a
  mock self-help show called “Daily Affirmation with Stuart Smalley.”
  Smalley, played by now-Senator Al Franken, would begin each show by
  reciting into the mirror, “I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and,
  doggone it, people like me.”

  IFRAME: [22]https://www.youtube.com/embed/-DIETlxquzY

  This was a spoof of the “self-esteem movement,” which in the 80s had
  been all the rage. In that decade, self-esteem became a hot topic for
  motivational speakers and almost a book genre unto itself. In 1986,
  California even established a self-esteem “State Task Force.” But by
  the next decade, the movement had degenerated into an easy late-night
  punchline. Even today, Smalley’s simpering smile is the kind of image
  that the term “self-esteem” evokes for many.

  Ironically, these criticisms would be heartily endorsed by the father
  of the self-esteem movement.

  Generation Barney

  The self-esteem movement is also widely blamed for its influence on
  American schools and families. In the name of building self-esteem,
  teachers and parents showered children with effusive, unconditional
  praise. In the name of protecting self-esteem, kids were sheltered from
  any criticism or adverse [23]consequences. The sugary rot spread to
  children's television as well. Many of today’s young adults were raised
  on Barney the Dinosaur, who gushed with “feel-good” affirmations just
  as sappy as Smalley’s.

  I am reminded of a moment from my own education career in the early
  2000s. I had designed a classroom game for preschoolers, and one of my
  colleagues, a veteran early childhood educator, objected that my game
  involved competition and winners. “Your game can’t have a winner,
  because that means other kids will be losers,” she explained.

  According to critics, this kind of mollycoddling has yielded a
  millennial generation full of emotionally fragile young adults who, in
  the workplace, expect praise and affirmation simply for showing up, and
  who can’t cope with (much less adapt to) constructive criticism. It is
  also partially blamed for the rise of politically-correct university
  “snowflakes” (aka “crybullies”) and their petulant demands for “safe
  spaces” on campus.

  An Unknown Ideal

  Ironically, these criticisms would be heartily endorsed by the father
  of the self-esteem movement. The whole thing was kicked off by an
  influential 1969 book titled The Psychology of Self-Esteem, written by
  Nathaniel Branden (1930-2014), a psychotherapist and one-time colleague
  and lover of Ayn Rand. It was the first of a long series of books by
  Branden about self-esteem, which included The Disowned Self (1971),
  Honoring the Self (1983), How To Raise Your Self-Esteem (1987), and The
  Power of Self-Esteem (1992).

  In [24]The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem (1994), his definitive book on
  the subject, Branden expressed deep dissatisfaction with prevailing
  discussions of the concept, especially after the movement became an
  explosive fad in the 80s. In that period, the concept of self-esteem
  was distorted by what Branden called “the oversimplifications and
  sugar-coatings of pop psychology.” Branden declared that:

    “I do not share the belief that self-esteem is a gift we have only
    to claim (by reciting affirmations, perhaps). On the contrary, its
    possession over time represents an achievement.” [Emphasis added
    here and below.]

  As Branden understood and explained it, self-esteem was an
  action-oriented, tough-minded concept. If Branden had been Stuart
  Smalley’s therapist, he would have advised him to stop mouthing empty
  self-compliments into the mirror and instead to start building real
  self-esteem through deep reflection and concrete action.

  Branden especially deplored how badly education reformers were getting
  self-esteem wrong. He wrote:

    “We do not serve the healthy development of young people when we
    convey that self-esteem may be achieved by reciting “I am special”
    every day, or by stroking one’s own face while saying ‘I love me’…”

  He elaborated that:

    “I have stressed that ‘feel good’ notions are harmful rather than
    helpful. Yet if one examines the proposals offered to teachers on
    how to raise students’ self-esteem, many are the kind of trivial
    nonsense that gives self-esteem a bad name, such as praising and
    applauding a child for virtually everything he or she does,
    dismissing the importance of objective accomplishments, handing out
    gold stars on every possible occasion, and propounding an
    ‘entitlement’ idea of self-esteem that leaves it divorced from both
    behavior and character. One of the consequences of this approach is
    to expose the whole self-esteem movement in the schools to
    ridicule.”

  Branden further clarified:

    “Therefore, let me stress once again that when I write of
    self-efficacy or self-respect, I do so in the context of reality,
    not of feelings generated out of wishes or affirmations or gold
    stars granted as a reward for showing up. When I talk to teachers, I
    talk about reality-based self-esteem. Let me say further that one of
    the characteristics of persons with healthy self-esteem is that they
    tend to assess their abilities and accomplishments realistically,
    neither denying nor exaggerating them.”

  Other-Esteem

  Branden also criticized those who:

    “…preferred to focus only on how others might wound one’s feelings
    of worth, not how one might inflict the wound oneself. This attitude
    is typical of those who believe one’s self-esteem is primarily
    determined by other people.”

  Indeed, what most “self-esteem” advocates fail to understand is that
  other-reliant “self-esteem” is a contradiction in terms. Far from
  building self-esteem, many of the counselors, teachers, and parents of
  yesteryear obstructed its growth by getting kids hooked on a spiritual
  I.V. drip of external validation. Instead of self-esteem, this created
  a dependence on “[25]other-esteem.”

  It is no wonder then that today we are faced with the (often
  exaggerated) phenomenon of young, entitled, high-maintenance
  [26]validation-junkies in the classroom and the workplace. Their
  self-esteem has been crippled by being, on the one hand, atrophied by
  the psychic crutches of arbitrary authoritarian approval, and, on the
  other hand, repeatedly fractured by the psychic cudgels of arbitrary
  authoritarian disapproval.

  Almost entirely neglected has been the stable middle ground of letting
  children learn to spiritually stand, walk, and run on their own: to
  build the strength of their self-esteem through the experience of
  [27]self-directed pursuits, setting their [28]own standards, and
  adapting to the [29]natural consequences of the real world.

  Branden also noted that self-esteem is not promoted by:

    “…identifying self-worth with membership in a particular group
    (“ethnic pride”) rather than with personal character. Let us
    remember that self-esteem pertains to that which is open to our
    volitional choice. It cannot properly be a function of the family we
    were born into, or our race, or the color of our skin, or the
    achievements of our ancestors. These are values people sometimes
    cling to in order to avoid responsibility for achieving authentic
    self-esteem. They are sources of pseudo self-esteem. Can one ever
    take legitimate pleasure in any of these values? Of course. Can they
    ever provide temporary support for fragile, growing egos? Probably.
    But they are not substitutes for consciousness, responsibility, or
    integrity. They are not sources of self-efficacy and self-respect.
    They can, however, become sources of self-delusion.”

  This helps to explain the emotional fragility of young people obsessed
  with “identity politics,” especially the [30]perverse pride in group
  victimhood that pervades the campus left. It also speaks to the
  agitation and resentment of today’s crop of white nationalists and
  other right-wing “identitarians.” As Ayn Rand wrote:

    "The overwhelming majority of racists are men who have earned no
    sense of personal identity, who can claim no individual achievement
    or distinction, and who seek the illusion of a “tribal self-esteem”
    by alleging the inferiority of some other tribe.”

  Authentic self-esteem promotes, not codependency and fragility, but
  independence, enterprise, resilience, adaptability, and a growth
  mindset: exactly the character traits that individuals, young and old,
  need more of in today’s economy and political climate.

  It is nothing short of tragic that the confusions of the so-called
  self-esteem movement have turned an indispensable concept into an
  object of ridicule and blame. Far from being the source of our
  problems, self-esteem is the [31]missing solution.
  Dan Sanchez

[32]Dan Sanchez

  Dan Sanchez is the Director of Content at the Foundation for Economic
  Education (FEE) and the editor of FEE.org.
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  [33]Republish
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More by [34]Dan Sanchez

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[37]Is the Customer Always Right? No, but…

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[39]Stressed over Finals? There Is Light at the End of the Tunnel

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[41]Why the Marvel Movies Are Better than Scorsese's "The Irishman"

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